The Division's Mission Statement

The Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) is committed to child protection and family preservation.  Every child is entitled to grow up in a permanent family.  The primary and preferred way of achieving this goal is to provide families experiencing turmoil with services to prevent the need to place children outside their homes.  The Division recognizes that there are a limited number of situations when children can not safely remain at home and must be separated from their family.  The Division strives to preserve and strengthen the child’s family ties when it is in the best interest of the child, and to protect the child by considering the child’s health and safety as the paramount concern in determining whether or not to remove the child from the home.  When a child must be separated from the family, DCFS will provide a healthy and safe environment and will make appropriate and timely efforts to provide services to reunite the family.  DCFS will provide appropriate homes for children who can not be reunited with their families.

Our mission is to:

·         protect children;

·         maintain families, if this is appropriate, with the child’s health and safety always considered paramount;

·         provide quality services within available resources which enable families to maximize their potential and increase their abilities;

·         preserve and enhance human dignity and worth;

·     prevent or reduce the need for services.